The Strad, june 2024

Quatuor Danel & Shostakovich

“A powerful new cycle live from these Shostakovich veterans" - Strad

The Quatuor Danel recently recorded the complete String Quartet cycle at the Gewandhaus Leipzig for label Accentus. This is what The Strad reported about the Danel’s new adventure with the works they have been playing for nearly whole their string quartet life.
“A powerful new cycle live from these Shostakovich veterans”
Artistic endeavour never lies till. Nearly 20 years ago the Quatuor Danel made what is widely regarded as a benchmark recorded cycle of the complete Shostakovich quartets. But ideas evolve, and this latest set sees two new members in the lower strings in a brilliantly vivid live recording given in the Mendelssohn Hall of the Leipzig. But ideas evolve, and this latest set sees two new members in the lower strings in a brilliantly vivid live recording given in the Mendelssohn Hall of the Leipzig Gewandhaus.
Traversing these works is a demanding process, reflecting Shostakovich’s own trials and tribulations. Spanning 36 years, their stylistic and harmonic is journey is perceptively interpreted here. The Danel brings a vast range of instrumental colour to Shostakovich’s sound world, using deep sonorous tones one minute and non-vibrato the next, while some of the notes are barely audible. It observes the letter and the spirit of the score with laudable accuracy, and handles the swift-changing tempos with absolute mastery. (In the Tenth Quartet) the Danel generates a visceral power with searingly strong bow strokes. Dynamics become extreme, nowhere more so than in the macabre Serenade of the Fifteenth Quartet, depicted with razor-sharp intensity. The C major section of the Elegy …. hails back to the First Quartet’s innocent lines … The circle is complete.
The Strad recommends, Issue June 2024
Works: Shostakovich String Quartets nos. 1 – 15, Two pieces for String Quartet & Quartet movement
Recorded by Accentus
Catalogue: ACC80585
Quatuor Danel plays Shostakovich

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